Ballet Folklórico Tapatío
15 Years of Tradition
TransPlans
The Fresh Faces of Transgender Youth
“Unity
Makes Strength”
Ambos Nogales Marches Together for Slain Nogales Youth
Metalphysic Sculpture Studio
Science in South Tucson
El Independiente
Letter from the Editor
El Independiente has a proud tradition of giving voice to the under represented, starting with the unique 1.2 square-mile city of South Tucson. This year, we were presented with an opportunity to restructure our historically bilingual publication, moving to include a swath of multimedia on our website, elindenews.com, in addition to focusing on design and visuals in our NEW longer-form print publication. We also recognized that in addition to South Tucson, we wanted to reflect other communities that might be under represented.
In that spirit, we include here the LGBTQ community and communities around the Nogales area, and hope that the broadening of our scope will help our readers to gain an understanding of these lives as well.
Our goal remains to give voice, but in our dual platform, including written and multimedia articles online, we hope to give sight, sound and texture as well, while continuing to honor the bilingual news service that has always been the signature and pride of El Independiente.
We hope you enjoy our offering as much as we’ve enjoyed constructing it, and further hope the exploration into these communities is as eye-opening for our readers as it has been for our reporters.
Thank you for reading!
Hannah Gaber, News Editor
El Independiente tiene la orgullosa tradición de darle voz a los que tienen poca representación, empezando con la ciudad única del Sur de Tucson que mide 1.2 millas cuadradas (1.92 kilómetros cuadrados). Este año, nos presentaron la oportunidad de modificar la estructura de nuestra histórica publicación bilingüe, cambiando para incluir una sección de multimedia en nuestro sitio web, ElIndenews. com, además de enfocarnos en el diseño y los aspectos visuales de nuestra publicación impresa más larga, también reconocemos que además del Sur de Tucson, queremos servir como una voz para otras comunidades que sean menos representadas.
Con ese espíritu, nos hemos expandido para incluir a la comunidad de lesbianas, gays, bisexuales y transexuales (LGBTQ) y las comunidades alrededor del área de Nogales que sean parte de nuestra cobertura, y esperamos que ampliar nuestro enfoque le ayudará a nuestros lectores a tener una perspectiva de estas vidas también.
Nuestra meta continúa siendo ser un portavoz, pero con nuestra doble plataforma, al incluir artículos escritos y de multimedia en el internet, esperamos brindar una visión, voz y textura también, mientras continuamos con el servicio de noticias bilingües que siempre ha sido nuestro estilo emblemático y el orgullo de El Independiente. Esperamos que disfruten nuestro contenido como nosotros hemos disfrutado construirlo y que la exploración de nuevas comunidades les abra los ojos a nuestros lectores como lo ha hecho para nuestros reporteros.
¡Gracias por leer!
Hannah Gaber, Editora Traducido por Cinthia Guillen
Photo by Katelyn Swanson
Mural by Las Artes students at the University of Arizona Biotech Park.
4 Ambos Nogales Marches Together for Slain Nogales Youth by Josh Morgan
8 Loving & Living Mariachi by Serena Valdez
10 Sunnyside Set to Restart Title Streak by Daniel Gaona
15 Metalphysic Sculpture Studio: Science In South Tucson by Katelyn Swanson
FALL 2012 Edition
18 Los Chinos or Los Coreanos?
The Korean Business Community in Downtown Nogales by Josh Morgan
32 TransPlans: The Fresh Faces Of Transgender Youth by Hannah Gaber
News Editor
Photo Editor
Design Editor
Copy Editors
Spanish Editor
Newsroom Manager
Designers
Advisors
Translators
Translation and Interpretation Department of Spanish and Portugese
24 Ballet Folklórico
Tapatío Celebrates 15 Years as a Family by Serena Valdez
27 Local Museum Reveals Jewish History in Tucson by Brittney Dicker
28 The Ride of His Life by Daniel Gaona
30 Imago Dei Middle School Teaches Outside The Mold by Iman Hamdan
Hannah Gaber
Josh Morgan
Katelyn Swanson
Iman Hamdan
Serena Valdez
Andrés Domínguez
Daniel Gaona
Brittney Dicker
Nigar Fatali
Susan Swanberg
Robert Alcaraz
Maggy Zanger
Gawain Douglas
Sara Alcazar Silva
Karen Gamez
Cinthia Guillén
Myrna Quezada
Photo by Hannah Gaber
“Unity
Makes Strength”
Ambos Nogales Marches Together for Slain Nogales Youth
Photos and Story by Josh Morgan
The Colinas del Buen cemetery in Nogales, Sonora, bustled with carne asada tacos, churros and celebratory singing as hundreds of families crowded up near their loved one’s graves for Dia de los Muertos.
Taide Elena relaxed as she wove through food stands, Norteño bands, laughter and groups of children playing tag in and around tombstones. As she arrived to the grave of her recently-deceased grandson, she couldn’t stop her tears.
“Era mi niño. Era mi niño,” she cried as she placed two lit candles in front of a portrait of 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez. “He was my boy. He was my boy,” she says. Elena left her ofrenda, wiped her tears and walked away.
“What I miss most about him is that he always greeted me with a hug and a kiss when he came home,” Elena says. “He was very loving.”
Jose Antonio was shot and killed after a U.S. Border Patrol agent opened fire on a group of young men allegedly throwing rocks at the border fence on the evening of Oct. 10 at the corner of Internacional and Ingenieros streets in Nogales, Sonora. A recently-released autopsy report reveals Jose Antonio was shot 13 times.
Investigations of the incident are being conducted on both sides of the border, but concrete details of the shooting have yet to be made public.
On the same evening as the shooting, Officer John Zuniga and Officer Quinardo Garcia of the Nogales Police Department in Sonora responded to a call about two suspicious men wearing camouflage with parcels strapped to their backs near the border fence at Internacional and Igenieros streets. Upon their arrival, Officer Garcia chased the men into the nearby neighborhood, while Officer Zuniga secured the area with his canine, Tesko. According to the Border Patrol, their agents responded shortly afterward to the alleged rock throwing from Nogales, Sonora. Border Patrol officials say that agents repeatedly yelled for the rock throwing to stop. The Border Patrol says one agent fired into Mexico at the alleged rock throwers.
Police reports from Garcia and Zuniga offered few details about what happened from their point of view. Garcia reported hearing a “hail of rocks” hitting the ground but he did not mention hearing
warnings from border patrol to stop throwing rocks before the shooting began. Neither Garcia nor Zuniga say whether they caught the two suspicious men in camouflage.
“Do I have questions relating to this (police) report?” asks Luis Parra, an Arizona-based attorney who represents the Rodriguez family in a case against the Border Patrol. “I have plenty of questions relating to this report. I think a little bit more detail would have been warranted.”
The shooting is the latest of 16 fatal shootings that have occurred along the U.S./Mexico border since 2010 and the second in Nogales, Sonora, since 2011.
“It is a very tense situation,” Parra says about the two recent shooting deaths in Nogales, Sonora. “There are many residents who are outraged because they haven’t had any answers.”
Dr. Luis Contreras Sanchez, who owns the clinic Jose Antonio was standing in front of when he was killed, said he is not satisfied with the official Border Patrol statements that were released to the public.
“The excuse that Border Patrol is giving is that they were throwing rocks,” Sanchez says.
“But if you look where the cross is, there are no rocks. But even if there were, why did they shoot him in the body? Why not shoot at the feet? It’s a scandal. It’s an excess of force.”
Elena and Araceli Rodriguez, Jose Antonio’s mother, are not satisfied with the small amount of information they were given about the shooting. Together with Parra, they are bringing a case against the Border Patrol in the United States. At home, with the help of friends, family and communities on both sides of the border, they are demanding concrete information regarding Jose Antonio’s death and lawful punishment for the agent who shot their child. Together, they protest.
mother, reached out to Rodriguez when word of Jose Antonio’s death spread through Nogales. She too sought answers.
“Unity makes strength,” said Elena. “That’s why we’re coming together.”
“They have taken a piece of my heart. No one is going to return my son to me. No one can give me back the hugs I gave him, the kisses, his voice or his smile.”
- Araceli Rodriguez
The first of these protests was organized with the help of the family of Ramses Barrón Torres, another Nogales youth who was also shot in response to alleged rock throwing in Nogales on Jan. 5, 2011. Selma Barrón, his
The first protest of about 30 family members, friends and supporters of the two Nogales youths marched through a crowded line of cars to the U.S./Mexico port of entry in downtown Nogales, Sonora, on Oct. 20. Jose Antonio’s siblings led the small group in chant: “We want justice for Jose Antonio.” They held signs that labeled U.S. Border Patrol agents as criminals and murderers.
“They have taken a piece of my heart,” Rodriguez says. “No one is going to return my son to me. No one can give me back the hugs I gave him, the kisses, his voice or his smile.”
Just two weeks later, the family held another protest, this time with supporters from both
Araceli Rodriguez leads the march along the border fence. Family, friends and supporters of Jose Antonio walked behind her chanting, “no mas muertes.”
Photos by Josh Morgan
sides of the border. Nearly 200 people, 100 from each side of Ambos Nogales, marched along the border fence on Nov. 2, Day of the Dead. The two sides met to hold a candlelight vigil to honor the youth who lost their lives at the hands of what protestors said was unnecessary use of force by the Border Patrol.
The towering fence separated the two sides physically, but “Ambos Nogales,” Both Nogales’ were united by the recent tragedy. Supporters from Nogales, Ariz., handed flowers and lit candles to Rodriguez and family of Jose Antonio through gaps in the border fence.
The two communities joined in prayer and
song, wearing white t-shirts imprinted with the silhouette of Rodriguez holding her son’s portrait in her hands.
Jeannete Pasos Gonzales, the director of the House of Hope and Peace in Nogales, Sonora, and one of the event’s organizers says support from both sides of the border is critical.
“This case should not be swept under the rug,” Gonzales says. “We believe that the message needs to get to Washington, the message that these types of deaths can’t happen, especially not children. I believe that it is important that this demand come from both sides of the border.”
Molly Little, a No More Deaths volunteer
who helped organize the march in Nogales, Ariz., echoes Gonzales.
“I think it’s critical for people from the United States to speak out and say we don’t want this happening in our name,” she says. “Our communities are also harmed by the impunity of the Border Patrol.”
Rodriguez will continue fighting for Jose Antonio in the case against Border Patrol, but until actions are taken, she will keep marching.
There are plans for more protests in the future.
“We’re marching so that justice is done,” she says. “So that my son’s case isn’t forgotten.”
From left to right: (1) Jose Antonio’s relatives protest in front of the U.S./Mexico port of entry in Nogales, Sonora, in late October. (2) Taide Elena, grandmother of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, holds a portrait of Jose Antonio at a march for him. (3) Araceli Rodriguez wipes tears from her eyes, at the spot where her son, Jose Antonio, was shot and killed.
Araceli Rodriguez, the mother of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, accepts a flower from a supporter in Nogales, Ariz., during the binational vigil on Dia de los Muertos near the site of Jose Antonio’s death. Nearly 200 people from Ambos Nogales participated.
Teacher’s life infused with all things mariachi
By Serena Valdez
Rafael Morán didn’t originally envision his life immersed in mariachi. But it is this art form that has given him his career, his favorite hobby, and a second family.
As a mariachi teacher at Wakefield Middle School for six years, Morán, 25, infuses tradition, heritage and culture into his classes while using music as a “motivation to keep the spirit alive,” he says.
He doesn’t view teaching as his job—instead he sees it as his passion, something he loves and does 24/7.
Loving &
And he doesn’t exaggerate when he says 24/7. In addition to teaching 16 classes at Wakefield, Morán also directs two youth groups, Mariachi Nueva Melodia and Mariachi Inspiración, in the evenings with his wife, Jasmin Fimbres. He is also part of the professional mariachi group, Mariachi Sol Azteca, for which he performs almost every weekend.
“I think that’s what sets me apart from the other teachers,” he says. “What I do on the weekends is the same as what I do Monday through Friday.”
Born in California but raised in Tucson, Morán had always been about sports: basketball, baseball and football. It wasn’t until he
attended Tucson Magnet High School that mariachi entered his life. Morán first chose to take a jazz dance class because he heard it was easy. But when the syllabus clearly stated black spandex pants as part of the class dress code, he immediately switched to mariachi.
“You weren’t going to catch me in spandex pants,” Morán says with a small laugh.
He entered the beginner’s mariachi class, where all the students had been playing since age 5 or 6. He had no experience with the community, the singing or the instruments. But he dived right in, choosing the guitar and challenging himself to learn 35 songs within three months.
Rafael Morán plays the guitarrón and sings with his students during his mariachi class at Wakefield Middle School. The class was practicing for El Noche de Mariachi, an in-school performance where they would play with mariachis from all over Tucson.
Photos by Josh Morgan
His teacher eventually put him in the advanced class where Morán had the unusual opportunity to beef up his skills with the guitar. He was the only student who wasn’t part of an outside mariachi group and was available for school performances. The teacher took advantage of the situation and based the other students’ grades on whether they could get Morán to successfully play the songs he needed to learn for the performances.
“I enjoyed it a lot because I knew that their grade relied on me learning songs, so that was fun for me,” Morán says. “And it was almost like I got a lot of private lessons and a lot of attention that you normally pay for. Here I could pick and choose who I wanted to teach me that day.”
Morán even found his wife because of the music he loved. They met at a conference when he was a freshman in high school. The couple joined Mariachi Sol Azteca, and created Nueva Melodia and Inspiración together during the near decade they dated.
After high school, Morán was a full-time college student for two years studying business administration.
However, he had to scale back on academics as mariachi took on a larger role in his life. He was the coordinator and project specialist of Math Through Mariachi for the UA Gear Up program. He also accepted jobs teaching at Cholla Magnet High School and Apollo and Wakefield middle schools.
At Wakefield, he taught summer programs, after school programs and two classes during school hours. The students in Morán’s advanced mariachi class say he is a wonderful teacher who cares for them and understands their needs as learners of their craft.
“He is the best teacher because I think he’s the only teacher that tells me what to do,” Jacky Gastelum, 13, says. “Not that (other teachers) don’t pay attention, they just don’t work as hard as he does. He goes above and beyond for us.”
During class, he helps the students tune the instruments. They stand or sit at the ready, grouped depending on the instrument they play. Once everyone is in ready position, they begin, with Morán singing and playing along on his guitar.
A handful of students also take turns singing. They sing timidly at first, but Morán encourages them, saying it takes each person’s contribution to perform successfully. Occasionally a student or two will throw gritos , crying out in typical mariachi enthusiasm.
The students feel comfortable asking him for help and clarifying things like what the notes to a song are or how to better play what they’ve learned.
Michael Valencia, 12, is the only sixth grader in the advanced class, but Morán’s teaching has helped him.
“He’s a good teacher because he’s nice and he treats us with respect,” Valencia says. “He interacts with the students and helps us focus and cooperate with each other better.”
Morán plans to finish his degree in business administration within the next few years, especially now he’s a newlywed and has a future family to prepare for.
Until then, his passion for mariachi will continue with his teaching, directing and performing.
Living Mariachi !
Right: Joaquin Orozco, Michael Valencia and Juan Zamora play the guitar during class.
Yazdel Enriquez sings “La Bamba” during mariachi class at Wakefield Middle School. Every student in Morán’s class has the opportunity to sing and learn to play the violin, guitar, trumpet and other instruments.
Left: Morán shows his students the materials that he ordered for El Noche de Mariachi.
Story
and
photos by Daniel Gaona
Anthony Leon accepts full responsibility for not leading Sunnyside to its 15th straight wrestling state title last season.
Sunnyside Set to Restart Title Streak
“I had a team tough enough to win it,” Leon says. “It’s on me.”
However, the second-year coach still considers the Blue Devils the best in the state and he is confident they can start a new championship run this season, especially, with 10 returning starters and an entire offseason to prepare – something he didn’t have in 2011.
Now that Leon has a year under his belt, he feels like he’s in a better place. And even though the Blue Devils didn’t bring home a trophy for the first time since 1996, he felt they still had something to be proud about.
“I thought we did an amazing job, the kids mostly, adapting to the change.” Leon says. “We put a very competitive product on the map, which if you knew what was going on underneath the hood was difficult to do last year.”
While the Blue Devils did not win the Division I team state title and didn’t have an individual state champion, they still proved to be competitive. Sunnyside tied for fourth place as a team with 113 points and had seven individuals place in the top six of their respective weight classes. Chandler High won the championship with 122 points, scoring only nine more points than the Blue Devils.
“I was pleased with last year and I’m very confident going into this year,” Leon says.
But last year was unusual. Former coach Bobby DeBerry retired in August, leaving some big shoes to fill in a short amount of time. DeBerry coached Sunnyside for 17 years and led the Blue Devils to 15 state titles over that span of time, with 14 of them being consecutive titles. DeBerry came out of retirement to take over the Tucson High wrestling program this season.
Leon, a Catalina graduate, was hired in late September, but didn’t start until October, which left him only one month to prepare for the season. The team didn’t have a preseason or an offseason, both of which Leon considers to be key to success.
“Given the circumstances we were put under, I think for us to put that competitive of a squad on the map was a testament to how tough these kids are,” Leon says.
Senior Aaron Steinebach says there was a sense of a culture shock when Leon first took over for DeBerry. Steinebach, a junior at the time and one of the team leaders, stepped up to say something to Leon, which resulted in him leaving the team.
Senior 145-pounder Aaron Steinebach tries to hold down senior 138-pounder Raul Moraga during a drill in an early-season practice.
“Him coming in and totally taking over everything, we weren’t ready for that,” Steinebach says. “We weren’t ready for everything he was giving us. It was like he was pushing us way too hard.”
Now, Steinebach is back on the mat this season and has bought into what Leon is trying to sell.
“Me and coach are like best friends now,” he says.
Preparations for this season began on Feb. 12 – last winter – the day after the Blue Devils snapped their championship streak at 14.
Roughly one month after the 2011-12 season ended, the Blue Devils returned to the Tim’s Toyota Center in Prescott Valley, Ariz., the state championship site, to compete in the Terminator Championships.
A few weeks after that, they traveled to Virginia Beach, Va., to wrestle in the High School Nationals where senior Sergio Miranda and
Returning Wrestlers
Juaquin Olivas, So., 113
“My goal this year is to take first at state and work as hard as I can to get there.”
Sergio Miranda, Sr., 122
“I was not satisfied at all, I fell short again. This year I’m looking for an undefeated year and a state title of course.”
William Olivas, Jr., 126
“This year I’m looking past state, I want to be a state champion but, furthermore, a national champion.”
Joey Lopez, Jr., 132
“This year I want to go to state and get to the end.”
Raul Moraga, Sr., 138
“All we’ve got to do is do what we know the most and capture a state team title. Hopefully, along the way I can capture an individual title and then go to Virginia Beach and become an All-American.”
Ricky Miranda, Jr., 145
“My goal is winning team and individual state and placing at nationals.”
Aaron Steinebach, Sr., 145
“My first goal is to win state as an individual and as a team and then I want to become an All-American.”
Oscar Cuevas, Jr., 160
“I want to be a state champion and take state as a team too.”
Chris Moreno, Jr., 170
“We’re going to continue working hard and keep doing what we’re doing so we can be state champions.”
Gabriel Gonzales, Jr. 182
“I couldn’t represent my team up at the state tournament last year, but I’ve got big plans. I never want to lose another high school match in my life. I know every single day coming in and out of practice that I’ve worked harder than my opponents.”
junior William Olivas earned All-American honors.
“That’s as prestigious as it gets,” Leon says. Since the High School National Wrestling Championships, Leon said he’s taken squads to tournaments in Reno, Nev., Daytona Beach, Fla., Oklahoma City, Okla., Pocatello, Idaho, Greensboro, N.C., and Las Vegas. The final trip this summer was to Fargo, N.D., for Junior Nationals, which was Leon’s biggest tournament with the team yet.
Miranda and fellow senior Raul Moraga, who originally interviewed Leon, were wary at first because he had previously been an assistant coach at north-side powerhouse Ironwood Ridge, which is essentially Sunnyside’s in-town rival.
“It didn’t seem like it was a good plan, but he presented himself well and I like him a lot,” Miranda says. “He’s taught me so much.”
Moraga says his skills have improved since Leon has taken over the program. Junior Chris Moreno also credits Leon with showing the team a lot of new moves.
“Coach DeBerry got me going and Coach Leon has added so much to my game,” Moraga says. “I didn’t get as much of a feel for an offseason as I did this year and I think that was the biggest difference between coaches.”
I
In addition to a very strong offseason and preseason as a school club, Sunnyside has 10 wrestlers coming back this year. The only two wrestlers not returning are 220-pounder Cedric Gonzalez and 138-pounder Andres Piedra who both graduated.
“This team will be better than we were last year, we’ll be much improved,” Leon says. “If there is a team outworking us, hats off to them.”
There has also been a more organized routine at practice than previous years, says Olivas who thinks it will pay off in the long run.
Through the ups and downs of last season, Leon said his philosophy remains the same: win, win, win. That’s been the mantra in Sunnyside’s wrestling room for a while, so he just wants to continue it.
“It’s all about winning state titles and getting kids to where they need to be,” Leon says. “The goal every year is to put 14 guys as high as you can on the medal stand.”
The team is in a much different spot than it was last year heading into the season. It also has more motivation.
For about seven months after the state championships, Leon kept a picture of the Chandler team hoisting the Division I trophy as the cover photo on his cell phone to remind him about the loss and keep him motivated. He currently has a picture of Jordan Burroughs, the gold medalist for wrestling in the London Olympic Games this summer.
Leon says the motivating challenge isn’t any one team in particular as it may have been last year. Not even Ironwood Ridge, the defending two-time Division II state champions who beat Sunnyside in a dual meet on the road last year. According to DeBerry, that was the first home dual-meet loss since the 1970s.
“These guys aren’t trying to catch a team,” Leon says. “These guys aren’t trying to compete with a team. These guys are trying to individually dominate their weight classes. It’s a different mindset.”
“If you’ve got 15 or 16 guys looking to dominate their weight class and they’re putting in the body of work to do that, it’s special,” Leon says. “That’s how you win titles.”
to the team title.
Second-year Sunnyside wrestling coach Anthony Leon looks on as senior 122-pounder Sergio Miranda and senior 138-pounder Raul Moraga go through drills against each other. Both are hoping to capture individual state championships and lead the Blue Devils back
En su segundo año como entrenador de lucha en Sunnyside, Anthony León y su asistente Rene Sanchez, el campeón estatal de los Diablos Azules, respasan técnicas en una práctica al principio de la temporada.
Sunnyside
listo para una racha de victorias
Escrito y fotos por Daniel Gaona Traducido por Cinthia Guillen
Anthony León acepta la completa responsabilidad por no haber guiado a Sunnyside a obtener el título estatal la temporada pasada el cual hubiera sido su decimoquinto título estatal consecutivo.
“Tenía un equipo lo suficientemente fuerte para ganarlo”, dice León. “Fue mi culpa. No hice los movimientos correctos y en pocas palabras no fui suficientemente bueno para conseguir que los muchachos estuvieran donde tenían que estar”.
Sin embargo, el entrenador que está en su segundo año considera que los Diablos Azules son los mejores del estado y está seguro que pueden empezar su trayectoria hacia los campeonatos esta temporada, especialmente con los 10 participantes que regresan y una temporada baja para prepararse—algo que no tuvo en el 2011.
Ahora que León tiene un año de experiencia sien-
te que está en un mejor punto de partida. Y aunque los Diablos Azules no ganaron el trofeo por primera vez desde 1996, él siente que todavía tenían algo de que estar orgullosos.
“Pienso que hicimos un trabajo increíble, especialmente los muchachos, adaptándose al cambio”, comenta León. “Pusimos un producto muy competitivo en el mapa, que si supieran lo que pasaba detrás de cámaras, sabrían lo difícil que fue el año pasado”.
Incluso cuando los Diablos Azules no ganaron el título estatal del grupo de primera división y tampoco tuvieron un campeón individual estatal, demostraron que eran competitivos. Sunnyside empató en el cuarto lugar con 113 puntos y tuvo siete individuos que llegaron en los seis primeros lugares en sus respectivas clases de peso. La Preparatoria Chandler ganó el campeonato con 122 puntos, con sólo nueve puntos más que los Diablos Azules.
“Estaba muy satisfecho con el año pasado y me
siento muy seguro entrando este año”, afirma León. Pero el año pasado fue inusual. El entrenador anterior Bobby DeBerry se retiró en agosto, dejando una responsabilidad muy grande que ocupar en tan poco tiempo. DeBerry fue el entrenador de Sunnyside durante los últimos 17 años y llevó a los Diablos Azules a ganar 15 títulos estatales durante ese tiempo, 14 de esos títulos fueron consecutivos. DeBerry salió de su retiro para asumir la dirección del programa de lucha de la Preparatoria Tucson esta temporada.
León, un egresado de Catalina, fue contratado a finales de septiembre pero no empezó hasta octubre, deiándole sólo un mes para prepararse para la temporada. El equipo no tuvo una pretemporada o una temporada baja, lo cual León considera clave para triunfar.
“Dadas las circunstancias en las que estuvimos, creo que para que nosotros hayamos podido tener un equipo tan competitivo en el mapa demuestra
que tan fuertes son estos muchachos”, explicó León.
Aaron Steinebach, alumno de cuarto año de preparatoria, dice que había como una sensación de choque cultural cuando León tomó el puesto de DeBerry. Steinebach, en su tercer año en ese momento y uno de los líderes del equipo, se enfrentó a León y resultó en su salida del equipo.
“Que él entrara y tomara control de todo, no estábamos preparados para eso”, declara Steinebach. “No estábamos listos para todo lo que nos estaba dando, nos empujaba demasiado”.
Ahora Steinebach está de regreso en las colchonetas esta temporada y está de acuerdo con lo que León está tratando hacer.
“El entrenador y yo somos como mejores amigos ahora”, dice Steinebach.
Las preparaciones para esta temporada empezaron el 12 de febrero—el invierno pasado—el día después de que los Diablos Azules rompieron su racha de campeonatos a catorce.
Aproximadamente un mes después de que se terminó la temporada 2011-12, los Diablos Azules regresaron a Tim’s Toyota Center en Prescott Valley, Arizona, la ubicación del campeonato estatal, para competir en los Campeonatos Terminator. Unas semanas después de eso, viajaron a Virginia Beach, Virginia para luchar en las competencias Nacionales de Preparatoria donde el estudiante de cuarto año, Sergio Miranda, y el estudiante de tercer año, William Olivas, ganaron el honor All-American.
“Eso es a lo más prestigioso que hay”, comenta León.
Desde los Campeonatos Nacionales de Lucha de Preparatoria (High School National Wrestling Championships), León dice que ha llevado a equipos a torneos en Reno, Nevada; Daytona Beach, Florida; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Pocatello, Idaho; Greensboro, Carolina del Norte y Las Vegas. El último viaje durante el verano fue a Fargo, Dakota del Norte para Junior Nationals, que fue el torneo más grande para León con el equipo.
Miranda y su compañero de cuarto año Raul Moraga, quien originalmente entrevistó a León, tenían sus dudas sobre él al principio porque había sido asistente del entrenador en unas de las escuelas con el equipo de lucha más fuerte del norte, Ironwood Ridge, que es el rival de Sunnyside en la ciudad.
“No parecía una buena idea, pero se presentó bien y me cayó muy bien”, afirma Miranda. “Me ha enseñado tanto”.
Moraga dice que sus habilidades han mejorado desde que León tomó control del programa. El estudiante de tercer año Chris Moreno también le da crédito a León por enseñarle al equipo muchos movimientos nuevos.
“El entrenador DeBerry me encarriló pero el entrenador León ha aportado mucho más a mi técnica”, reconoce Moraga. “No tuve una gran temporada baja como la tuve este año y creo que eso es la
gran diferencia entre los dos entrenadores”.
Además de tener una gran temporada baja y una pretemporada como un club de la escuela, 10 de los luchadores regresarán a Sunnyside este año. Los únicos dos luchadores que no regresarán son Cedric González que pesa 220 libras (99.8 kilos) y Andrés Piedra que pesa 138 libras (62.6 kilos) quienes se graduaron.
“Este equipo será mejor que el del año pasado, habremos mejorado mucho”, explica León. “Si hay algún equipo que esté trabajando más que nosotros, mis respetos para ellos”.
También tenemos una rutina más organizada en las prácticas que en años pasados, dice Olivas que piensa será mejor para ellos en el futuro.
A través de los altibajos de la temporada pasada, León comenta que su filosofía es la misma: ganar, ganar, ganar. Eso ha sido el mantra en el cuarto de lucha de Sunnyside por mucho tiempo, él sólo quiere continuar con eso.
“Todo se trata de ganar los títulos estatales y conseguir que los muchachos lleguen a donde tienen que estar”, indica León. “La meta cada año es poner a 14 muchachos lo más alto que se pueda en el podio de medallas”.
El equipo está en un nivel muy diferente del que estaba el año pasado entrando a la temporada. También tiene más motivación.
Alrededor de siete meses después de los campeonatos estatales, León tenía una foto del equipo de Chandler sosteniendo el trofeo de primera división en la pantalla de su teléfono para recordarle de su derrota y para mantenerlo motivado. Ahora tiene una foto de Jordan Burroughs, el medallista de oro para lucha en los Juegos Olímpicos en Londres este verano.
León dice que el reto de motivación no es alguien en particular como lo podría haber sido el año pasado.
Ni siquiera Ironwood Ridge, ganador dos años consecutivos de los campeonatos estatales en segunda división, le ganó a Sunnyside en una competencia de equipo doble mientras que viajaban el año pasado. De acuerdo con DeBerry, esa era la primera derrota en una competencia de equipo doble desde los años setenta.
“Estos muchachos no están tratando de derrotar a un equipo en específico”, dice León. “Estos muchachos no están tratando de competir contra un equipo, estos muchachos están tratando de dominar individualmente su categoría de peso. Es una forma de pensar muy diferente”.
“Si tienes 15 o 16 muchachos buscando dominar su categoría de peso y están poniendo todo su esfuerzo en hacerlo, es algo especial”, afirma León. “Así es como ganas los títulos”.
El estudiante de segundo año Juaquín Olivas de intenta derribar a Constantino Murillo durante elentrenamiento en una práctica al principio de la temporada. Olivas ganó el segundo lugar en la categoría de 106 libras (48 kilos) en los campeonatos estatales de la primera división la temporada pasada.
Bronzed and beautiful. The two words seem synonymous with Arizona. But for foundry owners Jay Luker and Anthony Bayne, the phrase takes on a very different meaning.
In 2001, they started Metalphysic Art and Sculpture.
The two men made a home for the foundry in southern Tucson where both local and out-of-state artists send models of their works to be cast in bronze. The founders quickly gained recognition for their craftsmanship. Since then, their sculpture business has boomed, churning out hundreds of works.
But, what exactly goes into making these sculptures come to life? They broke down the intense process to give a detailed, behind-thescenes look at what it takes to build one of these bronze beauties.
Metalphysic Sculpture Studio Science in south Tucson La Ciencia en el sur de Tucson
Hermoso y bronceado. Las dos palabras parecen sinónimos de Arizona. Pero para Jay Luker y Anthony Bayne, los propietarios de la fundición, la frase adquiere un significado muy diferente.
En el 2001, comenzaron Arte y Escultura Metalfísica.
Los dos hombres hicieron un hogar para la fundición en el sur de Tucson a donde los artistas tanto locales como de fuera del estado envían modelos de sus obras a ser moldeados en bronce.
Los fundadores rápidamente obtuvieron reconocimiento por sus artesanías. Desde entonces, su negocio de escultura ha crecido, produciendo cientos de obras.
Pero, ¿qué es exactamente lo que hacen para que cobren vida estas esculturas? Ellos explicaron el intenso proceso para echar un vistazo detallado detrás de cámaras de lo que se necesita para construir una de estas bellezas de bronce.
Story & Photos by Katelyn Swanson
Traducido por Myrna Quezada
Digital: The process begins when the artist brings in a smaller version of the piece, called a maquette, to be casted. A laser scanner is used to create a digital form on computers so it can be scaled to the desired size and broken into pieces that will later be put together in the final stages. This digital model is then sent to a machine to cut out the pieces in hard foam.
Clay: After the foam has been cut, chunks of clay are molded by the artist onto the exterior to create exactly what the final product should look like. This is one of the only times the original artist takes part in the process.
Wax: The inside of the clay pieces are then sprayed with a coating of rubber to create a lining. Molten wax is then poured inside the clay section and dumped out while still liquid, leaving a layer behind. This process is repeated until a shell about three-sixteenths of an inch thick is left against the mold. The wax provides the shape that the bronze will ultimately take.
Ceramic: The wax segments are assembled around a center rod, called a “gate,” and dipped repeatedly in a ceramic mixture, which builds up in layers. A final layer of sand is added as a binding component to form the exterior.
Digital: El proceso comienza cuando el artista trae con sí mismo una versión más pequeña de la pieza, llamada maqueta, para ser fundida. Un escáner de láser se utiliza para crear una forma digital en las computadoras, de forma que se pueda modificar al tamaño deseado y dividir en pedazos que más tarde se puedan armar en las etapas finales. Este modelo digital se envía después a una máquina para cortar las piezas de espuma dura.
Wax-Lost: The ceramic segments are fired in an industrial oven for 20 to 30 minutes at 1800 degrees. The wax melts out and the ceramic coating hardens. This is called the “wax-lost” method. The wax is captured to be reused.
Arcilla: Después que la espuma ha sido cortada, el artista moldea los trozos de arcilla sobre el exterior para crear exactamente como el producto final debe verse. Esta es una de las únicas veces que el artista original participa en el proceso.
Cera: Al interior de las piezas de la arcilla se les aplica una capa de goma con un atomizador para crear un forro. La cera fundida después se vierte dentro de la sección de la arcilla y se tira mientras que sigue siendo líquida, dejando una capa atrás. Este proceso se repite hasta que una cáscara gruesa de alrededor de tres dieciseisavos de pulgada se deja contra el molde. La cera proporciona la figura que el bronce finalmente va a tomar.
Cerámica: Los segmentos de cera son ensamblados alrededor de una varilla central, conocida como una “reja”, y se sumerge repetidamente en una mezcla de cerámica que se acumula en capas. Una última capa de arena se agrega como un componente de unión para formar el exterior.
La pérdida de cera: Los segmentos de cerámica se hornean en un horno industrial a 1,800 grados entre 20 y 30 minutos. La cera se derrite y la capa de cerámica se endurece. Esto se conoce como el método de la “pérdida de cera”. La cera se captura para ser reutilizada.
Molten Bronze: The ceramic shells cool for a day, then it’s off to the oven again. They are heated to 1800 degrees once again to prepare for the molten bronze. At the same time, bars of bronze are melted at 2000 degrees in a large container. Once both have been heated to the proper temperatures, the ceramic pieces are removed from the oven with special gloves and placed on a sand-filled, circular platform. The platform is rotated by one person while another pours the melted bronze into each ceramic shell around the circle until all of them are full.
Hardened Bronze: The bronze hardens at 1800 degrees. When the bronze-filled containers are fully cooled the ceramic exterior is hammered off, leaving hollow bronze segments. The segments are then cut off the central rod with a plasma cutter. A sand blaster blows off any remnants of the ceramic shell. The pieces are ready for assembly.
Chasing: The bronze sections are put together by repeated welding and hammering so they fit smoothly; this is called “chasing.”
Finishing: Once the piece has been fully assembled, the artist does a final run-through to see if any areas need to be smoothed out. Finally, a stain called petina is added to the exterior of the bronze to give it the desired shade. The bronze structure is complete. The entire process takes anywhere from two to nine months depending on the size and complexity of the artwork.
Bronce fundido: Las cáscaras de cerámica se enfrían por un día y luego se van al horno de nuevo. Se calientan a 1,800 grados una vez más para prepararlas para el bronce fundido.
Al mismo tiempo, las barras de bronce se funden a 2,000 grados en un recipiente grande. Una vez que ambos se han calentado a las temperaturas adecuadas, las piezas de cerámica se retiran del horno con unos guantes especiales y se colocan en una plataforma circular llena de arena. Una persona gira la plataforma mientras que la otra vierte el bronce fundido en cada cáscara de cerámica alrededor del círculo hasta que todas estén llenas.
Bronce endurecido: El bronce se endurece a los 1,800 grados. Cuando los contenedores llenos de bronce estén completamente fríos, el exterior de la cerámica se quita a martillazos, dejando segmentos de bronce con huecos. Los segmentos después son cortados de la varilla central con un cortador de plasma. Un chorro de arena limpia cualquier residuo de la cáscara de cerámica. Las piezas están listas para el ensamblaje.
Soldar: Las secciones de bronce se unen por medio de soldar repetidamente para que se armen sin problemas.
Terminando: Una vez que la pieza ha sido totalmente ensamblada, el artista hace un repaso final para ver si algunas áreas necesitan ser emparejadas. Finalmente, un ácido conocido como ‘patina’ se añade al exterior del bronce para darle el color deseado. La estructura de bronce está completa. Todo el proceso tarda de dos a nueve meses, dependiendo del tamaño y la complejidad de la obra de arte.
Man Ku Baek begins every morning practicing the same taekwondo forms he taught U.S. soldiers in Seoul, South Korea, in the 1960s. He bathes, then eats a typical Korean breakfast of rice with pickled and spiced vegetables. After his morning routine, he commutes from his Rio Rico, Ariz., home to his clothing and general merchandise store, Susan’s Fashion, in Nogales, Ariz.
Tightly-packed racks of generic men’s and women’s clothing line his walk from the door to the register. In the back of the building is a small florería with rows of brightly-colored plastic flowers, wreaths and figurines of La Virgen de Guadalupe. A few hundred feet south of his storefront, Nogales, Sonora, is visible through gaps in the rusted steel fence that marks the U.S./Mexico border. He shares the building with three other Korean business owners; Susan Kim, Heungyeol Ju and Jaewon Kim. His younger brother, Hong Ku Baek, owns the building.
The Nogales Korean business community, a group of about 40 families, is an important facet of the local downtown economy. Baek says most retail stores in downtown Nogales, about 75 percent, are now owned by Koreans. They carry cheap, generic clothing, general merchandise and inexpensive, Mexican-inspired decorative pieces.
“We know we cannot carry brand names,” says Christopher Park, the president of the Nogales Korean Merchants Association. “Most of our customers are low-income Mexican families that cross over (the border from Nogales, Sonora). We carry merchandise for them.”
Korean immigrants started moving to Nogales in the 1980s according to Baek. The first was Mr. Shin, who came in 1985 after many years of operating small businesses in Brazil. Most Korean immigrants came with little money and started out participating in the local swap meet. Eventually, they saved up enough money to lease vacant buildings in the downtown area. Baek says most of the Korean business owners in Nogales today came in the mid 1990s.
Baek came to Nogales from Los Angeles, Calif., in 1995 after
Photos and Story by Josh Morgan
Manku Baek, a Korean business owner in downtown Nogales, Ariz., watches a Korean television show behind his cash register at Susan’s Fashion. Baek moved to Nogales in 1995 to open a clothing store. Currently, there are about 40 Korean families in Nogales.
Jaewon Kim organizes plastic flowers at the florería in the back of Susan’s Fashion in downtown Nogales, Ariz. Kim’s florería is one of the four businesses that operates within the building.
hearing about burgeoning business opportunities in border towns. He was one of the first Korean immigrants to set up shop in Nogales.
“My generation came to the United States with empty pockets, so they didn’t have a chance to get education,” Baek says. “My generation needed living. We open business in U.S. to bring in money, to eat, to survive.”
Baek is familiar with the struggle to survive. He and his family fled to from North Korea to Incheon, South Korea in 1951 during the Korean War. At the time, North Korean refugees were often impoverished and faced discrimination in the south. He started learning taekwondo shortly after his older brother, Moon Ku Baek, began practicing for selfdefense.
“When we moved to South Korea, we had it very hard for living,” Baek says. “I had to protect myself in school. My brother said ‘Hey, you do this with me,’ because I was weak. After a few years, I had more confidence.”
Baek was a second-degree black belt by the time he graduated high school. His first job after school was teaching U.S. Army troops taekwondo in Seoul. There, he lived on the military base and began learning English.
In 1974, his brother invited him to immigrate to Cleveland, Ohio, to teach taekwondo in his studio. He taught in the evenings and at local universities and community colleges during the day.
Baek’s brother was successful with his taekwondo dojo, opening eight branches in Cleveland, but Baek struggled with his own finances. Then, a father of a student suggested he open a business. Shortly after moving to Cleveland, Baek opened his first business with another brother, a restaurant called Mr. Hero’s in Canton, Ohio. Together, they opened two more restaurants before his brothers moved west to California, fleeing the Ohio winter. Baek took over the businesses his brothers left behind, but also grew tired of the winter, and decided to join his family in California. Unable to find business opportunities in the oversaturated market in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles, he moved to Nogales in 1995.
Nogales brought new challenges for Baek.
“In this area, 90 percent people speak Spanish,” Baek says. “It was very difficult because I never speak Spanish. A lot of (Korean) people fail and move out. They have to speak Spanish to be successful.”
Eventually, Baek picked up Spanish from his store employees. He says that he had the business sense to let his employees help him confront the language barrier.
“Employees help me with transaction and translation.”
Baek attributes his business sense to lessons learned in Ohio and the discipline learned through taekwondo. He no longer teaches taekwondo, but the martial art is still very important to him.
“I quit ten years ago,” Baek says. “But myself in the morning, I still do it because that is my life.”
Practicing taekwondo is also a small way for Baek to preserve Korean culture in Nogales. In Soon Kim, another Korean business owner downtown, says the small things are what keep Korean culture alive in the primarily Hispanic region.
“I always hear Spanish music at work,” Kim says. “When I’m home, my husband turn on sports channel.”
Kim says it is difficult to maintain Korean culture in Nogales. Korean television channels are available through DIRECTV, but she isn’t able to pay the high cost of specialized pro-
gramming. Korean newspapers are delivered to Nogales, but they often arrive late and in stacks.
When Kim first moved to Orange County in 1983, she said there were no Korean broadcast channels to watch in the United States. She felt disconnected from Korean current events, even starting to forget the dates of Korean holidays, like Chuseok, Korea’s version of Thanksgiving. She was reminded of it one day when her daughter came home with a paper model of songpyeon, a rice cake traditionally eaten on the holiday.
“My daughter come home from pre-school and said, ‘My teacher said it was Chuseok.’ I forgot about Chuseok.” Kim says. “Now we can see in the Internet….When I see that, I remember.”
Small examples of Korean culture exist in each shop. In Susan’s Fashion, Baek and the other business owners often stream Korean news broadcasts and entertainment on their laptops. Every day around noon, Susan Park shouts to the others that it’s time for lunch. Baek, Park, Ju and (Jaewon) Kim gather in the middle of the building behind Park’s register and lay out Tupperware containers full of kimchi, bean sprouts, Korean pancakes and
other side dishes. They line up one-by-one to fill their bowls with rice from a small, red rice cooker tucked away underneath suspended dresses on a rack against a wall.
In their spare time, some play hwatu, a Korean card game based on the Japanese hanafuda playing cards.
A small Korean church serves the community with weekly services and special gatherings for holidays. Most churchgoers in the community are women, but Kim says some women, like herself, don’t regularly attend. “They have social life in the church,” Kim says. “Men have social life in the golf course.” For Kim, her social life is around the red rice cooker.
The most important thing keeping Korean culture alive in Nogales is language, Kim says.
“As long as we speak Korean, that keeps the culture.”
For the Korean business community, preserving their culture is only a part of establishing their identity in the city. Many citizens on both sides of the border walk into their stores surprised and sometimes confused to see an Asian behind the cash register. Some Nogales locals refer to them as “los Chinos,” the Chinese. Baek says the Korean community has been reaching out to both sides of the border to inform their customers about who they are. In Nogales, Sonora, they donate money and clothing to orphanages and nursing homes.
“Before they don’t understand. They say ‘Who is these Chinese, Korean people?’” Baek says. “Now, we are trying to get together with Mexico side and explain what’s going on, who we are.”
The Korean business community is also heavily involved in the Downtown Merchants Association in Nogales, Ariz.
“We need to be here to keep our business and community clean and safe,” Park says. “Not just our business - This is our home.”
Man Ku comienza todas las mañanas practicando las mismas formas de taekwondo que le enseñó a los soldados estadounidenses en Seoul, Corea del Sur, en los años sesenta. Se baña y después come un desayuno coreano típico que consiste de arroz con vegetales en vinagre y con especias. Después de su rutina mañanera se transporta de su casa en Rio Rico Arizona a su tienda de ropa y productos generales Susan’s Fashion en Nogales, Arizona. Estantes repletos de ropa de marca genérica de hombre y de mujer lo rodean al caminar desde la puerta hasta la caja registradora. En la parte de atrás del edificio hay una pequeña florería con coloridas hileras de flores de plástico, guirnaldas y figuritas de La Virgen de Guadalupe. A unos cuantos pies al sur del frente de su tienda, se puede ver Nogales, Sonora a través de los huecos del cerco de metal oxidado que marca la frontera entre Estado Unidos y México. El edificio se comparte con otros tres propietarios de negocios coreanos: Susan Kim, Heungyeol Ju y Jaewon Kim. Su hermano menor, Hong Ku Baek, es el
Mr. Ju, right, fills up his bowl with rice as Mr. Baek and Mrs. Kim, left, prepare side dishes for lunch at Susan’s Fashion. Every day between 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m., the four business owners in Susan’s meet at a small table near the middle of the building to eat a light, traditional Korean lunch.
Escrito y fotos por Josh Morgan Traducido por Karen Gamez
dueño del edificio
La comunidad de negocios coreanos de Nogales, un grupo de aproximadamente 40 familias, es una faceta importante de la economía local del centro de la ciudad. Baek comenta que alrededor del 75 porciento de las tiendas en el centro de Nogales le pertenecen a coreanos. Manejan ropa de marcas genéricas barata, productos generales y de bajo costo y decoraciones inspiradas en la cultura mexicana.
“Sabemos que no podemos vender marcas”, comentó Christopher Clark, presidente de la Asociación de Comerciantes Coreanos en Nogales. “La mayoría de nuestros clientes son familias mexicanas de bajos recursos que cruzan (la frontera de Nogales, Sonora). Les traemos la mercancía a ellos”.
ya era cinta negra de segundo grado. Después de graduarse, su primer trabajo fue enseñando taekwondo a las tropas del ejército de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica en Seoul. Ahí vivió en la base militar y comenzó a aprender el inglés.
En 1974, su hermano lo invitó a mudarse a Cleveland, Ohio y dar clases en su academia de artes marciales. Ahí daba clases por las noches, durante el día en las universidades y en las escuelas superiores locales.
Según Baek, los inmigrantes coreanos comenzaron a mudarse a Nogales en los años ochenta. El primero fue el Sr. Shin en 1985 después de haber operado pequeños negocios por muchos años en Brasil. La mayoría de los inmigrantes coreanos llegaron aquí teniendo muy poco dinero y comenzaron por formar parte del tianguis local. Eventualmente, juntaron el dinero suficiente para poder rentar edificios disponibles en el área del centro de la ciudad. Baek comenta que la mayoría de los coreanos propietarios de negocios que hay ahora en Nogales llegaron aquí a la mitad de los años noventa.
Baek se vino de Los Angeles, California a Nogales en 1995, después de haber escuchado sobre las crecientes oportunidades de negocios en las fronteras. Él fue uno de los primeros coreanos en establecer un negocio en Nogales.
“Los de mi generación llegaron a los Estados Unidos sin un cinco en el bolsillo, por lo que no les fue posible recibir educación”,explicó Baek. “Mi generación necesitaba ganarse a vida. Abrimos negocios en los Estados Unidos para ganar dinero, para comer y para sobrevivir”.
Baek sabe lo que es luchar para sobrevivir. Él y su familia huyeron de Corea del Norte a Incheon, Corea del Sur en 1951 durante la Guerra de Corea. En aquel tiempo, los refugiados norcoreanos con frecuencia se veían empobrecidos y sometidos a la discriminación en el sur. Empezó a aprender taekwondo una vez que su hermano Moon Ku Baek comenzó a practicarlo para defensa personal.
“Cuando nos mudamos a Corea del Sur, la vida era muy difícil”, expresó Baek. “En la escuela me tenía que defender yo solo. Mi hermano me dijo ‘Oye haces esto conmigo’, porque yo era muy débil. Después de algunos años adquirí seguridad”.
Para cuando se graduó de la preparatoria, Baek
El hermano de Baek tuvo éxito con su academia de artes marciales, por lo que abrió ocho sucursales en Cleveland, mientras que Baek batallaba con su situación económica. Luego el padre de un alumno le sugirió abrir un negocio. Poco después de que se mudara a Cleveland, Baek y otro hermano abrieron su primer negocio,un restaurante llamado Mr. Hero’s en Canton, Ohio. Juntos abrieron otros dos restaurantes antes de que sus hermanos se mudaran a California huyendo del invierno de Ohio. Baek se hizo cargo de los negocios que sus hermanos habían dejado, pero también se cansó del invierno y decidió reunirse con su familia en California. Incapaz de encontrar oportunidades de negocios en el mercado sobresaturado del área de Koreatown en Los Ángeles, en 1995 se mudó a Nogales. Nogales le presentó nuevos desafíos a Baek. “En esta área el 90 porciento de la gente habla español”, afirmó Baek. “Fue muy difícil porque nunca había hablado español. Muchos coreanos fracasan y se van. Deben hablar español para tener éxito”.
Con el tiempo, Baek aprendió español de sus empleados. Dijo tener la visión empresarial de permitirles a sus empleados que lo ayudaran a enfrentar la diferencia de idiomas. “Los empleados
El Sr. Ju, a la izqeierda, habla con el Sr. Baek mientras que ve programas de televisión coreanos. Ju y Baek ambos son proprietarios de negocios coreanos en Susan’s Fashion en el centro de la ciudad de Nogales, Ariz.
Susan Kim, a la derecha, prepara el almuerzo mientras que el Sr. Ju y el Sr. Baek comen arroz y vegetales en vinagre. Todos los dias entre 12:00 p.m. y 1:00 p.m., los cuatros proprietarios se reunen en la pequeña mesa al centro del edificio para comer un almuerzo tradicional coreano.
me ayudan con las ventas y la traducción”.
Baek señaló haber obtenido su visión empresarial gracias a lo que aprendió en Ohio y a la disciplina adquirida por medio del taekwondo. Ya no enseña taekwondo, pero para él, las artes marciales continúan siendo de suma importancia.
“Lo deje hace diez años”, comentó Baek. “Pero aun lo practico por las mañanas yo solo porque es parte de mi vida”.
La práctica del taekwondo es una pequeña forma en que Baek conserva la cultura coreana en Nogales. Otra propietaria de negocios en el centro de la ciudad, In Soon Kim, dijo que son las cosas pequeñas las que hacen que la cultura coreana se conserve en regiones dominadas por hispanos.
“En el trabajo siempre escucho música en español “, señaló Kim. “Cuando estoy en mi casa mi esposo pone el canal de deportes”.
Dice Kim que es difícil conservar la cultura coreana en Nogales. DIRECTTV ofrece canales de televisión coreana pero Kim no puede pagar esa programación especial costosa. El periódico coreano llega a Nogales, pero con frecuencia llega tarde y acumulado.
En 1983, cuando Kim acababa de mudarse a Orange County, dijo que en los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica no transmitían ningún canal coreano. Se sentía desconectada de lo que estaba aconteciendo en Corea y que incluso comenzaba a olvidar los días festivos como el Chuseok, que es la versión coreana de Thanksgiving. Lo recordó
un día que su hija llegó a la casa con una figura de papel representando un Songpyeon, que es un pastel de arroz que tradicionalmente se come en el día festivo.
“Mi hija llego a casa del kínder y dijo ‘Mi maestra dijo que era Chuseok’, a mi se me olvidó Chuseok”, explicó Kim. “Ahora podemos ver en internet…Cuando lo veo me acuerdo”.
En cada tienda se pueden ver ejemplos pequeños de cultura coreana. En Susan’s Fashion con frecuencia, Baek y los otros propietarios de negocios transmiten noticieros y programas de entretenimiento coreano en sus laptops. Todos los días alrededor de medio día Susan Park les grita a los demás que es hora del almuerzo. Baek , Park, Ju y (Jaewon) Kim se reúnen en el centro del edificio, atrás de la caja registradora de Park, y ponen recipientes Tupperware llenos de Kimchi, germen de soya, hotcakes estilo coreano y algunos otras guarniciones. Hacen fila y van pasando de uno por uno a servirse arroz de una olla roja que esta metida debajo de unos vestidos colgados de unos estantes en la pared.
Algunos en su tiempo libre juegan Hwatu, que es un juego de cartas basado en el juego de baraja japonés Hanafuda.
Cada semana una pequeña iglesia coreana ofrece ceremonias religiosas a la comunidad, y también en reuniones especiales para días festivos. La mayoría de las personas que van a la iglesia son mujeres, pero así como Kim, muchas mujeres no
asisten. “Tienen vida social en la iglesia”, comentó Kim. “Los hombres tienen vida social en el campo de golf”. Para Kim la vida social está alrededor de la olla roja de arroz.
El idioma es lo que más ha ayudado a conservar la cultura coreana en Nogales, afirmó Kim.
“Siempre y cuando hablemos Coreano se conserva la cultura”.
Para la comunidad de negocios coreanos, el preservar su cultura es sólo una parte de lo que establece su propia identidad en la ciudad. Muchos ciudadanos de ambos lados de la frontera quedan sorprendidos, y en ocasiones confundidos, al ver a un asiático en la caja registradora. Muchos nogalenses se refieren a ellos como “los chinos”. Baek comenta que la comunidad coreana se ha dado a conocer en ambos lados de la frontera para informar a sus clientes sobre quienes son. En Nogales, Sonora donan ropa y dinero a los orfanatos y asilos de ancianos.
“Antes no entendían. Decían ‘Quienes son estos chinos, coreanos?”, explicó Baek. “Ahora tratamos de unirnos con el lado mexicano y explicarles lo que está pasando y quienes somos”.
La comunidad de negocios coreanos también está realmente involucrada con la Asociación de Comerciantes del Centro de Nogales Arizona.
“Debemos estar aquí para mantener nuestra comunidad y negocios limpios y seguros”, añadió Park. “No es sólo nuestro negocio- Este es nuestro hogar”.
Susan Kim organiza ropa en la pared trasera de Susan’s Fashion. Ella se mudó a Nogales a mediados de los años noventa.
Ballet Folklórico Tapatío
Celebrates 15 Years of Family
By Serena Valdez
Dancers fly across the stage at Centennial Hall. Their gold ruffled dresses and suits shimmer luxuriously under the intense lighting. Traditional Mexican music blares through the speakers. They dance to celebrate 15 years of a traditional cultural expression and the tightknit family of Ballet Folklórico Tapatío.
The anniversary performance on Nov. 9 captivated the audience with the regional dances of Mexico. Students from local middle schools and high schools, friends, family members and fans crammed into more than
900 seats. First generation members graced the stage alongside current dancers, representing how the past and present have not only made Tapatío what it is today, but what it could be in the years to come.
Since its inception in 1997, Tapatío has built a reputation as an esteemed dance troupe, performing from New York City to Los Angeles and south to Guadalajara, Mexico.
The group has performed at major events such as the half-time show at the Arizona Cardinals football game in 2009 and taught workshops at conferences in Mexico. They have also competed in folklórico dance
competitions, with their biggest accomplishment in 2010, when they won first place at the International Mariachi and Ballet Folklórico Festival in Baja California, Mexico.
Humble Beginnings
In 1997 Eduardo Baca Sr. could not ignore that his three children loved dancing folklórico. He decided to make his own group and solicited help from Patricia Klein Aviles, Irma Valle and instructor Sergio Valle. Soon after, Tapatío became official and they spent their first year practicing under the porch at the
Marina Ceceña of Ballet Folklórico Tapatío stands beside the stage at Centennial Hall moments before their performance. Tapatío, which is based in the heart of South Tucson, celebrated their 15th anniversary as a group in November.
Photos by Josh Morgan
Baca house.
Today, his son Jose Luis Baca is the artistic director of Tapatío, and he remembers well how the group developed in such a short time.
“Little by little people started hearing about us and pretty soon we had random people showing up at my parents’ house and we didn’t know who they were,” Baca says. “But they were dancers and they wanted to dance.”
By 1998 the small group had grown from three couples to a full dance group, earning its first invitation to perform at Las Fiestas del Octubre in Guadalajara, Jalisco.
Now, 15 years later, Tapatío has grown to more than 160 dancers, divided into four skill levels: grupo principantes, the beginner’s group; grupo infantil, an advanced beginner’s group; grupo juvenil, the intermediate group; and el grupo oficial, the master/advanced group.
To accommodate the ever-expanding group, they moved away from the Baca porch and into an official practice space. Eduardo Baca Sr. owned an upholstery store in South Tucson and donated the empty lot on his store’s property for their studio.
At first glance, the studio could be mistaken for a house. Its white walls and blue trim make a one-room dance space. Outside
is a small office—the newest addition to the studio, built during the summer. Inside, floorlength mirrors line the western wall.
The wooden floors are sturdy to support the constant heavy taps of the dancers’ boots. Nearby, a costume closet explodes with bright, wide, ruffled dresses and suits, old and new.
The first generation members of Tapatío helped build the studio. They put up the walls, the roof, installed the lights and painted. They created a home for themselves.
Marisa Gallegos, assistant artistic director and Tapatío dancer in since 2007, could never imagine the studio anywhere else than at 2100 S. Fourth Ave.
“There have been opportunities where there are studios with a bigger parking lot, a bigger studio, air conditioning—we have
swamp—but, I mean, it’s our home. There’s so much history,” she says.
Jose Luis Baca agrees, explaining that he doesn’t want to be too far from South Tucson, his home.
“South Tucson is always known for other things, for bad things. You know, drugs in the street, prostitutes,” he says.
“This is a dance academy located in the heart of South Tucson and it’s one of the most positive things that South Tucson has.”
A Family of Its Own
Aside from the dance floor, members invite each other to birthday parties and social gatherings, and stand shoulder to shoulder during hard times.
Anisette Noperi, 25, a member since 2007, has always balanced her love for dancing folklórico and playing in her family’s mariachi group, Mariachi Cielo de Mexico.
In February of last year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She took a leave of absence from her studies at the University of Arizona, and her mariachi and folklórico work for surgery and chemotherapy. During her recovery, the group helped raise funds for her treatment and supported her emotionally.
“The group also did a manda for me,” Noperi says. “Because I’m Catholic, what we did was walk from my grandmother’s house in South Tucson all the way to the mission San Xavier. All of them did that for me.”
For other members, Tapatío has given them a place to dance while also expressing their culture. Rikki Lopez, 18, a member since
From left, Elizabeth Herrera, Citlalli Galindo, Celina Pena and Maria Maes from the infantil group of Ballet Folklórico Tapatío, prepare their makeup and hair before their performance.
From left, Raul Guzman, Josepth Ortega and Anthony Carra play while waiting for the show to begin.
From left, Ayleen Cruz, Freya Ugonna and Zaria Ugonna sit on the floor and talk as other members of the principales group get ready.
of el
2000, grew up in the group and performed in eight anniversary shows. She says she could never think of dancing in any other group because Tapatío is her family. But she also likes preserving the culture of folklórico.
“I like being able to present this to a lot of people who don’t understand it or haven’t been able to see it,” she says. “We are here to show them that we can have dancers from America who can present culture from Mexico accurately.”
Ni Modo
“Un. Snap. Dos. Snap. Tres. Snap. Cuatro Snap. Cinco. Snap. Seis. Snap. Siete. Snap. Ocho…”
As the rehearsal starts, group members warm up with head rolls and toe taps, while Jose Luis Baca counts and directs as the dancers follow
along. The ambiance is calm and focused—at least until someone says something funny and laughter and side chatter bounce around the room until a chorus of “shhh” ensues.
When it’s time to practice the Vera Cruz region, skirts are donned and the dancers line up and wait. As they move across the floor, they make the complex steps look easy.
The women twirl their skirts and the men whistle and throw loud gritos, traditional calls of enthusiasm. The atmosphere is upbeat, fun and inviting. Dancers not in the piece stand aside but practice the moves and call their own gritos from the sidelines.
By the end of rehearsal the room is warm and the dancers are sweaty and tired. But everyone is happy.
For Baca, that’s the most rewarding part.
“With my students, when they’re having a bad day I always tell them that if they’re hav-
ing a bad day, act as if you have a backpack on. Take it off at the door. Dance it off. When you’re done dancing you can either pick up that backpack and put it on your shoulder, or leave it there because you realize that it’s not important,” he says.
Looking Forward
In the course of 15 years, Ballet Folkórico Tapatío expanded from a group of six practicing under a porch to more than 160 working out of a studio built by their own members.
Amidst extravagant costumes and floral hair arrangements and precise stomping and twirling, dances a family.
And 15 years from now, Baca says he hopes to see that the group still going strong, whether its 160 or 600 dancers performing on the stage.
Ballet Folklórico Tapatío at Centennial Hall during their showcase performance of the year.
Members
grupo oficial wait in the wings to begin their performance at Centennial Hall.
Local Museum Reveals
Jewish History in Tucson
By Brittney Dicker
The Jewish History Museum in downtown Tucson showcases the contribution of Jews in Tucson as the city developed from a military outpost to modern city.
Traveling from Europe around 1880 in hopes of prospering in a new country, Jews “helped to form the foundation of Tucson,” says Eileen Warshaw, executive director of the museum. Exhibits and artifacts displayed at the museum include clothing from southwest pioneers dating back to the 1600s, coins, and phone directories of the city of Tucson from 1880s onward.
European Jewish communities were literate and often spoke multiple languages, qualities
that were desirable for successful business.
For example, Barron and Lionel Jacobs opened the first bank in the territory, Pima County Bank, in 1879. And in 1885, Salim Franklin, who was Jewish and Tucson’s representative in the territorial legislature, was responsible for the University of Arizona being located in Tucson.
In short, Jews “were very instrumental,” Warshaw says, in the development of the city from its early years.
More recently, the museum and its team of archivists and UA volunteers spent 18 months sorting through boxes of documents, photographs, scrapbooks and letters from Tucsonans dating back to the 1800s.
Athol Cline, a local archivist, has spent
weeks photographing the artifacts which have been uploaded to the museum’s website (www.jewishhistorymuseum.org).
The website is organized into files and PDF documents, which allow viewers to search for particular artifacts, books, and letters in documents they’d like to see.
“The virtual museum is much more exciting than the actual museum,” Cline says.
The historical documents placed on the Internet, as well as those still being researched by archivists, will soon be available in print in the new Holocaust History Center next door to the museum. The stories of a number of Holocaust survivors from Southern Arizona will be incorporated into the center, which is scheduled to open in early 2013.
Photo by Leo Goldschmidt, a photographer and businessman in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Tucson. He was the owner of the Eagle Milling building pictured above.
The Ride of His Life
Car Culture is Priceless for Cruising Enthusiast
Ernie Cruz has owned his 1966 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport for 30 years and 10 of those years were spent making it into his very own one-of-a-kind ride.
Roughly 10 years ago, an interested buyer offered him $36,000 on the spot, when the car wasn’t for sale.
Cruz didn’t even think twice.
“The guy pulled it out of his pocket and I said, ‘No, it’s not for sale,’” Cruz says.
“That’s what that car means to me. It means a whole lot more than the $36,000. I probably could have used that money, but the car meant more to me than anything else.”
Call him crazy, but even if the offer had been $50,000, the answer would have been the same, he says.
Cruz, 55, considers the Impala part of the family. He’s had it longer than he’s been married to his wife of 24 years, Margaret Susan. The car is a rarity.
“It’s a lifetime of what I’ve accomplished,” Cruz says. “It’s something I worked on for 10 years and I feel that this is one of a kind I won’t do ever again, so I’ll probably hold on to it until the day I leave this world.”
In October, he entered the car show at Tucson Meet Yourself. It was his first show in at least 20 years after his oldest son, Ernie Jr.,
23, convinced him to get the car back out into public.
Cruz Sr. says the car had been parked in their garage for the last 15 years so it took a little bit of prepping to get it back on the road. Cruz Jr. volunteered to buy new batteries for the hydraulics because the old ones were dead.
“Just that little bump or boost he gave me brought back all the years we used to go out there and cruise,” Cruz Sr. says.
The boost from Cruz Jr. also led to an award, first place among cars from 196069. Now that they have the car ready to go, they are likely to do shows whenever their schedules allow. Or, they can always just go cruising – something Cruz Sr. did plenty of when he first got into the car-club scene.
It all started when Cruz was hanging out with the Alegria family who lived near him on South Clark Avenue. Cruz helped them customize and prepare their 1966 Impala, which they would take to shows. He slowly began getting into the culture and eventually
Story and Photos by Daniel Gaona
Ernie Cruz has been offered as much as $36,000 for his 1966 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport.
Ernie Cruz holds the first place award his 1966 Impala SS won at Tucson Meet Yourself this year.
became a member of the Drifters Car Club, which the Alegria family formed. He also met his wife there.
“We just kept going and then they finally initiated me into the club,” Cruz says.
Then in 1982, Cruz bought the Impala from Maria Preciado, the car’s original owner who had kept it in great shape and lived across the street from the Alegrias.
“I cruised a little bit when I first got the car the way it was and I started to build it up piece by piece,” Cruz says. “All what you see has been a project through the years to put it at this level.”
Some of the customizations include repainting the car a darker blue, adding hydraulics and chroming several parts. But Cruz says the car had all its original parts when he bought it and still does, including the interior and motor.
While the car was a work in progress, weekend nights were spent cruising South Sixth Avenue between West Irvington Road and Five Points at the southern tip of downtown – where cruisers would turn around and head back south.
“There were so many people out there,” Cruz says. “There were lines and lines of cars. It would take several hours to make the turn and come back.”
Randy “R-Dub” Williams also remembers how crowded South Sixth used to be with people cruising – Speedway Boulevard too. He used to ride with his friends in his 1983 Cutlass Supreme on both stretches.
“Cruising South Sixth would go down in my top five memories of my childhood, my teenage years and growing up in Tucson,” Williams says. “I loved it for so many reasons.”
Being car enthusiasts, Cruz and Williams agree that one of the highlights was just getting to see everyone’s ride. Cruz also says dropped cars were an important part of the Hispanic culture.
“It was like a moving car show every night,” Williams says. “The best memory I had was when it would just be bumper-tobumper and you were literally just cruising at two-miles-an-hour so everyone can see you and could look at peoples’ cars and wave to the girls.”
Cruz said he would have to start prepping his car on Mondays for it to be ready to go cruising on the weekend. One of the main things he had to do was charge the six bat-
“It’s something I worked on for 10 years and I feel that this is one of a kind I won’t do ever again.”
– Ernie Cruz
teries for the hydraulics.
“This was all for fun,” Cruz says. “To get out there and show what you had.”
However, in the early 1990s, the culture began to change and the laws became stricter about cruising.
“They started to make new laws relating to lowriders as troublemakers because there was a lot of trouble with them up in California,” Cruz says.
That eventually caused Cruz to partially step away from the scene. He also says the younger generation of cruisers came onto the picture and provoked a lot of trouble.
“They were real hot with the mouth and then the guns started to pop up,” he says. “That’s when I noticed things were changing.”
Cruz was pulled over several times for hitting the switch on his hydraulics while he was moving but was let off with warnings. As more laws to prevent cruising went into effect, he didn’t want to get a ticket that would raise his insurance premiums, so he completely left the scene.
Not too long after that, cruising on South
Sixth was virtually shut down. Williams says he remembers it coming to a sudden stop. He knew problems were inevitable because of the crowds, but still, he thought the positives outweighed the negatives.
“I remember vividly there was a time police would put flares on the road and they would literally re-route traffic,” Williams says. “That was a big bummer because you’re enjoying cruising and all of the sudden you see these flares and police officers routing people onto the freeway, basically closing South Sixth Avenue down.”
Now that Cruz has the Impala set and ready to go and his two sons interested in it, there’s a possibility that the car can be out and about more often. Since he is only the second owner of the vehicle and has put so much work into making the car his own, Cruz has no intention of ever selling.
While some things have changed over the years, there is one thing that remains the same and makes Cruz’s Impala SS stand out to his friends and strangers alike.
“It’s still as shiny as it was way back in the day,” Cruz says. “You can’t miss it.”
Imago Dei
Middle School
Teaches Outside the Mold
By Iman Hamdan
Making friends is never an easy thing, but maintaining friends when going into middle school is even more difficult.
April Silva, an eighth grader at Imago Dei Middle School, felt lost in the public school crowd. She’s shy and made few friends at her elementary school. But she says all that changed the minute she stepped into Imago Dei’s doors.
“Within the first five minutes I made a friend,” Silva says. “I haven’t had any problems with making friends here.”
Modeled after Epiphany School in Dorchester, Mass., the private school caps enrollment at 80 students, 20 per grade level, creating a small classroom environment with 10 students to one teacher in each classroom.
“The small ratio allows students that much
needed one-on-one time with teachers to improve their retention and comprehension in any subject matter,” says Kitt Bret Harte, Imago Dei’s principal, who points out that most students start reading under grade level.
According to Silva, each teacher knows the level at which each student learns and helps or challenges them when necessary.
“It’s nice to be able to ask questions and actually have them answered unlike in public school where I was afraid to ask questions,” Silva says.
Students attend class 10 hours a day Monday through Friday and half days on Saturday, 11 months out of the year. Students on the honor roll are granted an early dismissal because the last hour of the day is reserved for study hall. Seven hours are reserved for classes, while three hours are reserved for enrichment activi-
Amarys Sandoval, 11, from Girls Helping Girls, paints bathroom stalls during Days of Caring at Imago Dei Middle School.
Photo by Serena Valdez
ties such as architecture, sports, gardening, dance, journalism, art, language, martial arts and photography.
“I like going to school six days a week,” Silva says. “I get bored very easily, but the long hours keep me really busy so by the time I go home I’m tired.”
One of Silva’s favorite memories of her eighth grade year came in her history class.
“Miss Flanigan acted like she found a love note on the floor and began reading it,” Silva says. “The whole time she was reading the breakup letter we were trying to figure out who wrote it as we pointed fingers and giggled. When she finished she asked us who wrote the letter and we all looked at each other confused. She then told us that it was the introduction to our history lesson about the end of Americans’ relationship with Britain during the Revolutionary War. It was really cool and fun.”
throughout the next four to eight years of their academic career.
“I want to go to San Miguel,” says Silva, who has to fill out an application and scholarship information to attend the high school of her choice. “When we have graduate support program time on Monday Mr. Rick [the program coordinator] gives us all the tools we need to complete the forms and essays so we don’t have to do it alone.”
“The fact that we are working together as a community makes it fun and brings us together, making us proud of our school.”
– Estevan Barcelo, seventh grader
In addition to history, students learn other core subjects like English, writing, reading, science and math, but they also dive into the subject of religion, discussing not just Christianity, but Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism.
Next to the school, students and staff created a sacred space, where religious services are held twice a day and students sing and enjoy one another’s company.
Imago Dei’s Motto
“We are trying to break the cycle of poverty through education,” says Mark Zero, Imago Dei’s development officer. “We want to provide these students with opportunities to succeed academically all the way through high school and in some cases into college.”
Imago Dei, 55 N. Sixth Ave., was established in 2005 and provides a tuition free private school experience for fifth through eighth graders who qualify for free or reduced lunches.
A majority of Imago Dei students aspire to attend private high school and universities, so the faculty and staff designed a graduate support program to help students pursue their dreams beyond eighth grade.
The school provides students with extensive preparatory classes for high school and college with a free mentoring program
Beyond academics, volunteering is a major part of the curriculum. Students are required to complete community service hours for graduation, Zero says. Eighth graders either go to the Tucson Museum of Art or Armory Park Senior Center to complete community service hours.
“I like going to the senior center because we are getting to know them and we will be building a sculpture for their garden,” Silva says.
Giving Back
Last year, Imago Dei had to move to a larger space.
“We just outgrew the 6,300 sq. ft.,” Bret Harte says. With a 25,000 sq. ft. building that served as the old Sears Executive Center, renovations are desperately needed.
Imago Dei teamed up with United Way to host a Days of Caring event to renovate their new location on September 22.
Seventh and eighth grade students and Imago Dei faculty came in on a Saturday to help clean and paint the building. Groups such as Girls Helping Girls signed up to work alongside them.
Dulce Madero, director of Girls Helping Girls, said she heard about the Days of Caring through Wings of Women. Usually, Girls Helping Girls focuses on work with homeless women with children twice a month, but the event fell into their laps, giving them a nice change. The girls enjoyed being able to help someone their own age, Madero says.
Sixty people were divided between two jobs – repainting the bathrooms or repainting the stairwells. Adults and eighth graders handled
the heavy sanding machinery, stripping the old, electric purple and teal paint to make way for more neutral colors.
“Not only are we knocking out community service hours, but we are making people want to be here by making the place look more inviting,” Silva says.
Erin Flanigan, the seventh and eighth grade history teacher who supervised students that day, says she witnessed something very special.
“The kids are stepping up and taking responsibility for the building they spend the majority of their time in,” Flanigan says. “They are being treated and trusted like adults and they are stepping up into the role in a big way.”
Estevan Barcelo, a seventh grade student, says, “The fact that we are working together as a community makes it fun and brings us together, making us proud of our school.”
For other teachers like Natalie Parker and Kelsey Lillmars, seeing their students work diligently created “incredible results for years to come” as “each student will take something different away from today’s experience.”
Future Ventures
In an effort to go green, Imago Dei students built a self-sustainable garden outside the cafeteria. On this small concrete patio there are four large metal troughs filled with mounds of black dirt. Inside the trough sit two-week old sprouts of carrots, herbs, onions and tomatoes. A solar-powered fountain sits beside a brightly painted brick wall.
“We have looked into selling our products to local farmers’ markets,” Bret Harte says. “It will be nice to bring in a little extra revenue from something the kids enjoy doing.”
Zero says Imago Dei spends $15,000 per year per student, thanks mostly to donations from Tucson and nationwide. This is triple the amount public schools spend on their students.
The immersion in the community creates partnerships with local organizations, Zero says, including the Arizona Theater Company, which performs Shakespeare’s plays at the school twice a month. The Drawing Studio provides hands-on art and drawing classes; Los Changuitos Feos, a youth mariachi group, performs and teaches students their heritage, and the UA College of Astronomy teaches the children physics. The UA’s Drachman Institute mentors students through designing an environmentally sustainable middle school campus.
“This doesn’t just feel like school to me because I’m excited to be here,” Silva says. “This is my family who is helping me make a better future for myself and I’m going to miss it here a lot when I graduate.”
Trans
Photos by Hannah Gaber
Plans Trans Plans
The Fresh Faces of Transgender Youth
By Hannah Gaber
Cathy is struggling with the headmaster at her child Bailey’s school. It’s not because of discipline, exactly, or an issue with the teacher. It’s because of Bailey’s gender. Born a boy, Bailey has been insisting for years that she is a girl. Now 7, Bailey wants to be addressed as “she” and allowed to dress as a girl in school. This is where the runin with the administrator came up.
Uncertain at first, and concerned for Bailey’s safety, Cathy has been letting Bailey “be a girl” when she comes home from school, but Bailey wants to be that person all the time.
“I love being a girl,” says Bailey, caressing her glittery headband and pirouetting around the kitchen. “Being a girl is awesome!”
With Bailey insisting on being a girl and fighting at school, Cathy eventually took her child to a counselor.
It was then she discovered the term “transgender” and all that it might mean for Bailey and the family, including the possibility of allowing Bailey to live as a girl.
This has opened many questions for Cathy and her family, who Cathy asked not be identified for this story, and brings up questions of transgender and youth. What is transgender,
and how, at 7 or even younger, can a youth be so sure their physical gender is wrong?
What—and who—is Trans?
Once called “Gender Identity Disorder” by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (usually referred to as the DSM), an indication of how the concept is being explored is evidenced in the forthcoming DSM where the term will change to “Gender Dysphoria.”
The definition is “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender.”
The numbers are hard to track, as is often the case with populations that live in the shadows, but Vincent Paolo Villano, Communications Representative for the National Center for Transgender Equality estimates that 0.25 to 1 percent of the population is transgender or gender non-conforming.
Yet the concept has proven difficult for people to understand and accept, from within and outside the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) community.
“I think a lot of it is our society doesn’t
want to accept that we are all a little more fluid,” says Rae Strozzo, program coordinator with the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance (SAGA) and a transgender individual.
Transgender is an umbrella term including those who don’t identify as their birth, or “assigned” gender, the “gender fluid,” the Native American-derived concept of “two-spirit,” and those who identify as “gender-queer,” says Strozzo.
Strozzo’s journey began in a small town in Georgia, which he describes as “very closeted.” He struggled with his physical, or assigned, gender at a very young age. “I was 3 when I knew something was up,” he says. “When I was 10, I was stamping my feet that I was a boy.”
He said he tried for years to “figure out how to be a girl,” but eventually, even his concerns for his own safety didn’t dominate the knowledge that the life he was trying to live just wasn’t for him. His story is familiar to many transgender individuals.
TC Tolbert is a trans person working with the University of Arizona Pride Alliance, and founder of the Made for Flight transgender ally project. Tolbert says his journey has
“lots of twists and turns” but also starts in his youth.
In fourth grade, he says his best friend exultantly proclaimed “I know what you need! You need a sex change!” He went to his mom, and reported the discovery. Her joy did not equal his.
“She cried,” he recalls.
Tolbert, from Tennessee and raised Pentecostal, says his childhood was full of sayings like “God would’ve made you a boy if you were meant to be a boy.” So, deciding that going to hell seemed undesirable, Tolbert tried to walk the line.
He lived as a woman and eventually got married, but the day came that his husband could see his struggle. He said his husband sat him down and said it was clear he wanted to be with women.
Tolbert tried to live as a lesbian for a while, he says, but when he was about 28, he moved to Tucson, changed his name, and “remade” himself. He says it wasn’t that he was a gay woman, but that he was a man and not a woman at all.
Tolbert’s story illustrates something Dr. Melissa Levine of El Sol Family Medicine states very clearly: Gender and sexuality are not the same thing.
“Gender identity is part of your core,” says Levine, which is how people can say at 3 or 4
years old which gender they are, even if it’s different from the one they were physically born with. Sexuality is not grasped by a mind that young, and, in her opinion, remains fluid throughout life.
In her “well-child check” she asks “Are you a boy or a girl?” which she says is standard medical practice. Asking a 3 year old if they know their gender is a way physicians check development, she says. Children should know the difference between genders and which they are by that age, and if they don’t, she says it’s a sign there might be developmental delay.
Though Levine, Tolbert and Strozzo all agree that there seems to be more young transgender individuals in the Tucson community, they don’t think it is because being transgender has become more prevalent. They all say they believe it is because society has become more accepting, and people can explore at a younger age.
In Tucson, which Levine calls the “liberal Mecca of Arizona” and Tolbert calls a “little pocket of sanity,” organizations like Wingspan, Tucson’s LGBTQ community center, 430 E. 7th St., and the many Gay-Straight Alliance programs in high schools all over the city provide access to other LGBTQ people, and services like counseling and gender transitioning services.
Gender Transitioning
As understandings of gender can fall on a spectrum, so do actions people can take to transition. Social transitioning might include being called by a chosen name of the identified gender, or dressing as the identified gender, while medical transitioning spans hormonal treatments to surgical alterations.
For Tolbert, hormone therapy, in the form of testosterone, has gotten him to where he feels right. He says the idea of “born in the wrong body” is outdated, that “it doesn’t feel like I was
TC Tolbert talks with a visitor at the Transgender Awareness Week Resource Fair which took place in November.
born wrong, it feels like I grew into this body.”
Feeling right, says Levine, escaping a “sense of intrinsic wrongness” is the goal of any treatment.
But the idea of “treating” transgender is a tough one, says Martie van der Voort, a counselor with the University of Arizona Counseling and Psych Services (CAPS) specializing in gender and LGBT issues. In the current health care environment, a diagnosis is usually required for insurance coverage of hormone or other “treatments,” but the idea of treatment implies a cure, an end to a sickness. Van der Voort says transgender people don’t think of themselves as sick, she says they tell her “I’m finally well.”
“Trans kids have a long-term, unchanging view of themselves,” which can come with a “sometimes belligerent refusal to accept their birth-body,” she says.
She says the medical community is starting to come around to the idea “to not treat is to harm.” She has heard rumors, though rare, of “pumping parties” where silicone or other substances are injected under skin without medical supervision to accentuate or effeminize features, and of youth going to Mexico to get hormones or stealing birth control pills from family members when they can’t get access to medically supervised treatments.
Diana Wilson is a parent of a transgender child and has helped to organize a community for parents with young transgender children. She says she can’t even count the times she has heard from a parent who has caught their young son trying to cut off his penis, claiming
he hates it and wants to be a girl.
She is certain that to deny people their sense of identity is very harmful, and hopes to promote learning and acceptance with her efforts and involvement with Wingspan.
Other risks facing transgender kids include homelessness, some estimates placing LGBTQ youth as high as 40 percent among homeless youth, according to the Center for American Progress. They are also at higher risk for alcohol abuse, intravenous drug use
“It doesn’t feel like I was born wrong, it feels like I grew into this body.”
– TC Tolbert
and unprotected sex, which brings risks such as HIV infection.
Dr. Richard Muszynski, a clinical psychologist treating transgender individuals among his patients in Tucson, says transgender individuals often display depression, attempt suicide, abuse substances, cut themselves, or engage in other “self-harm” activities.
He says these facts should have society considering “what [it does] to a person who is trying to constantly hide who they are.”
The 2011 National School Climate Survey
conducted by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) points out “81.9 percent of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 38.3 percent reported being physically harassed and 18.3 percent reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.”
For the first time since initiating the survey, the GLSEN reports a decrease in bullying and harassment in schools. But transgender students are often discriminated against even from within the LGBTQ community, and reported feeling unsafe at school at a rate of 80 percent when compared to their non-transgender peers.
“No one would volunteer for that,” says Muszynski, who disagrees with ideas that transgender might be contrived or somehow trendy, or encouraged by family or others. He says it requires a lot of energy and determination to push against the standards of society, and, in his experience, individuals are almost always pushing against their own families as well.
“When someone begins this journey,” Muszynski explains, “they are getting a lot of pressure to not do this.” Families go through the process alongside individuals, and protocol includes a year of living as the identified gender before medically transitioning. Muszynski says one of the reasons for this is allowing families to adjust too.
Transgender individuals are aware they don’t transition alone, he says. Parents can even experience grief, having lost the child they thought they had, before realizing their child is “following their own development.”
But, they’re so young….
During the year of living as the identified gender, van der Voort says, “They either have the ‘this is not what I want’ or ‘God, this is so much more me’ reaction. [People are] not making the decision alone” she says. For youth in particular, this is largely because they
are “not legally allowed to.”
For his part, Tolbert is not concerned about adolescent impulse or trendiness being responsible for irreversible medical decisions.
“No one wakes up today and does this tomorrow,” he says. “Imagine the shit you get with your breasts and trying to tell people to call you ‘he’!”
He says there is ample time and opportunity to discover if “that’s not an identity you’ll want to carry forward.”
In addition, Dr. Mitchell Parker, an endocrinologist in Tucson, says hormone treatment is almost entirely reversible, with the possible exceptions of a lower voice or a receding hairline on people born women.
However, he explains, administering hormones is either for adults, or comes after youth take hormone blockers in order to delay puberty, which is not initiated until a young person who has already identified for quite some time begins puberty.
Levine, who believes she transitions more individuals than anyone in Tucson, says the hormones issued to delay puberty are the same that are administered to youngsters who exhibit aggressive or early-onset puberty. Hormone blockers have been used for those treatments for years, she says, and are not considered risky.
In the case of transgender youth, she and van der Voort explain that the blockers are to “buy some time,” to give youth an opportunity to experience adolescence as the gender which they identify with before anything
permanent happens.
In addition, neither Levine nor Muszynski can think of a case where a patient has progressed to the point of medically transitioning only to turn back.
The process is lengthy and arduous, and if a person is not actually transgender, they discover it before then.
However, the stigma in society might take even longer to treat.
“Our society has trouble being able to tell different from bad,” Strozzo says. But he and Tolbert both feel that the increase in visibility and support from older transgender people has helped to create an environment where people feel a bit safer exploring younger, and possibly saving themselves years of anguish.
“Being able to explore who you are,” Tolbert says, “is only good.”
Levine feels the solution doesn’t lie in “tolerance.” To “tolerate” another human being is unfair. No one wants to be tolerated, she says, they want to be treated like everyone else.
To be kind and carry forward a purpose of treating people well in a general way is a better philosophy, she says.
For Cathy, no school administrator or societal stigma was enough to argue against her child’s happiness.
“He wasn’t happy being a boy,” she says. “He just doesn’t have that smile, that twinkle in his eye, you know? It’s just not there.”
Cathy has decided to allow Bailey be a girl full time, at school and at home, and says she is happier than ever.
Martie van der Voort enjoys a vendor’s wares at the Transgender Awareness Resource Fair in November.
Featured portraits are from Pride in the Desert on Oct. 13. People represented are from all walks of life.
Photos by | Fotos por Josh Morgan